REIMAGINE: 30 YEARS | A VIRTUAL CREATION

Please enjoy our 45 minute film REIMAGINE: 30 Years | REIMAGINED!

View it anytime on our Vimeo Showcase HERE.

It’s free, but donations of any amount are welcomed and can be made HERE.

More about….

REIMAGINE: 30 YEARS | REIMAGINED premiered as a Long Center Create virtual event on Saturday, September 12th.

The original performances of REIMAGINE were set to premiere May 1, 2020 at The Long Center’s Rollins Theater featuring music composed and performed by Graham Reynolds with Alexis Buffum on Violin and Nora Karakousoglou on Cello.  After rehearsals were suspended and the performances were postponed, Artistic Director, Andrea Ariel regrouped with the company dancers on zoom to create a reimagined, virtual version of the show.

REIMAGINE was to be an evening of dance and live music that reimagined and weaved AADT’s past repertoire with new choreography all set to scores by Reynolds. Long time collaborators with over 10 shows together from 1999-2012, Ariel reunited with Reynolds to mark the company’s 30-year anniversary. “Over all these years we were both developing our work, and there are many threads of Graham’s compositions that are part of my work during that time” Ariel says. ”I thought it would be interesting to reimagine older works and create new ones to a selection of scores that resonated with these connections.”

Over three months during shelter-in-place, the company rehearsed virtually to re-create selected pieces from REIMAGINE in the dancer’s private homes and environments that they then filmed. While some of the dances aligned well for a virtual re-creation, others did not. REIMAGINE: 30 Years | REIMAGINED brings three re-creations together with a look at a few past repertoire pieces through archival excerpts and the company’s rehearsal footage pre-COVID. The 45-minute premiere, edited by Colin Lowry, aims to be a virtual experience akin to seeing a show, moving from one piece to the next. The company will be live in the chats during the premiere.

One of the reimagined pieces, “Home,” explores isolation. The first section was originally created with the dancers limited to an 8 ft.x 8 ft. space and separated from each other. As the piece progressed these spaces enlarged creating overlaps and connections between the dancer’s movement and patterns that were developed. The uncanny relevance of this piece in our current situation lent well to re-creating the first section in a room in the dancer’s homes.

“Crossings,” another reimagined piece, moves from isolation to patterns of the daily comings & goings of our lives beyond our personal spaces. It explores random crossings that occur leading to interactions and connections with each other that then evolve. In this re-creation during “stay-in-place” the choreographic score had the dancers employ film concepts using vectors to create movement and pathways in their personal spaces and environments. The choreography was brought forward by Ariel by connecting the vectors through editing.

The third reimagined work is a short, fun delight called “Getting Dressed,” set to Reynolds’ “The Pencil Song.”  A fourth re-creation “Stripping Away”along with “Home” and “Crossings,” use scores originally composed by Reynolds for AADT’s “Geometry of Proximity” in 2012.

Other works included in the virtual program are Ariel’s signature solo from 1990 “Broken Head,” and “Life’s a Circus” from 1996. These pieces combine archival excerpts and rehearsal footage of our early process of re-staging the dances to Reynold’s “Cam Stack & Crank Handle” from his album “The Difference Engine: A Triple Concerto” and “Droids” from his album “Tosca String Quartet.”

REIMAGINE: 30 YEARS | REIMAGINED was created in collaboration with dancers Whitney O’Baugh, Luis Ordaz Gutiérrez, Ceci Proeger, Rebecca McLindon, Kevin Armstrong, Sandie Donzica and video editor Colin Lowry.

This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department and by business sponsors and individual contributors like you!